Legal & General’s Venture Capital and SME investment programme, which also includes its “SE-Assist” product for social enterprises, has now made investments in over 100 UK-based companies, and is on track to double that number during 2018.
Early-stage companies which have benefited from Legal & General’s VC funding now have a combined Enterprise Value of over GBP10 billion. Prime areas of focus have included technology, analytics, life sciences and digital healthcare, with a particular emphasis on investments in companies located outside London.
Legal & General’s VC investment programme is conducted alongside seven partner-managers. These include OSI (Oxford Sciences Innovation), CIC (Cambridge Innovation Capital), ADV (Accelerated Digital Ventures), a joint venture with British Business bank which specialises in investee companies outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle, Atomico, Anthemis, Kindred and Balderton.
In addition, Legal & General provides debt finance to SMEs through its GBP2 billion AUM (and growing) Pemberton investment.
Laura Mason, Director of Direct Investments at Legal & General Capital, says: “Our GBP12 billion regeneration programme for UK cities showed that, alongside investment in physical infrastructure, we need more patient capital for growth businesses. Our universities are great at research, but less good at commercialising new technology. Our entrepreneurs are great at start-ups but often struggle to scale up. We want more companies listing onto the London Stock Exchange. There is a fantastic opportunity for DB and DC pension schemes to help support this with an allocation to patient capital investments. In return for a relatively modest capital commitment, we have been able to already help over 100 companies that could otherwise get caught in the “funding gap” above the EIS/VCT stage of development. We are about half way through our investment programme and expect to hit the 200 company-mark during 2018.”
